I'll chime in and say it's a great looking addon; inside and out.

 

A note about performance: I too had really dodgy performance on my system which runs all other payware reasonably well (usually 24-46 fps). After getting airborne I would get horrible lag on the instrumentation. However, after unchecking the option to "Allow hardware rendering" things were much more smooth. (for me)

 

Now, this is my experience. Flying on P3D with a load of addons. It may be this option was meant for FSX users, or it varies depending on one's hardware. Who knows? So many variables; so little time.

 

Finally, I agree it will be a very good addon after some polishing and finding the best settings. 

Your best bet is to read through the posts at the TFDI forums and make your decision.  The opinions I've seen are strangely all over the place but I will give you mine.  No, it is not PMDG quality. Does it have potential to be at some point?  Possibly.  The VC modelling is fantastic and the sounds are great...some of the best I've heard.  From a pure looks standpoint, yes...great looking airplane.  I was an early buyer and to be honest I put it in the "hangar" about a week ago due to numerous issues that make it unflyable for me (this is with the latest fixes).  The ATS and autopilot logic just are not working correctly. The flight director is very erratic which probably ties into this issue. I have not had consistent results with VNAV/LNAV/MCDU/ILS intercept operations at all.  Speeds can be all over the place and LNAV tracking at times is horrendous (6-10 miles off course) The MCDU is very limited at this point and you cannot even get ETA's, TOD, TOC.  I also have issues loading in STARs where the MCDU leaves out many of the last waypoints. Heck, the altimeter setting doesn't even work correctly, not sure how that wasn't caught??  I have also been unable to get GSX working with this aircraft either as I cannot open the GSX menu...and it only happens with the 717 (not sure many others are having this problem though...so it is a mystery).  The night lighting also needs to be reworked IMO.  The VC lighting is just not effective at all and turns off too early (sunrise) and on too late (sunset) and I cannot see anything at all in the cockpit.  I have had on/off performance issues ranging from very stuttery to very smooth to pretty wide swings in FPS (don't really care about the FPS number unless it causes stutters).  Overall in my testing, it performs 20%+ below the NGX in similar scenarios but less consistent. That being said, it does have quite a number of issues that need to be fixed, many of which I think are pretty major.  I don't think the plane was ready for release but what's done is done and I think TFDI has learned from this.  I'm glad others seem to be having little to zero issues although I'm guessing some of these people are not flying it how it is supposed to be flown (??).  I have seen youtube videos where many of these issues were obvious or the plane is just being flown incorrectly (following FD well over 20 degrees pitch up nearly stalling, retracting flaps at 8000', not using AP correctly, etc, etc), and then give glowing reviews about how great it is.  All depends on what you are looking for I guess.  Hopefully TFDI can fix the issues but I'm sure it will take some time. 

This bird quickly became one of my top-two planes (the other one being the Majestic Q400). On my system the performance is not spectacular but quite good. I didn't note any errors that were a game changer and didn't have any stutters or CTDs. It is a plane that demands attention to detail, but when you properly follow the amplified checklist it works great and is very rewarding.

 

The only complaint I have so far is that one cannot save/restore/import flight plans, but I am sure they will fix this at some point. 

 

Peter

I fly it all the time. My FPS have been great from day 1. I feel bad for people having issues. It's amazing how FS software reacts so differently to different pc's. The bugs are manageable. I fly it all the time. Great VC and sound. The best part is they are actively fixing the issues people are having and planning on adding features after that step. For 60$ is a great aircraft.

Your best bet is to read through the posts at the TFDI forums and make your decision.  The opinions I've seen are strangely all over the place but I will give you mine.  No, it is not PMDG quality. Does it have potential to be at some point?  Possibly.  The VC modelling is fantastic and the sounds are great...some of the best I've heard.  From a pure looks standpoint, yes...great looking airplane.  I was an early buyer and to be honest I put it in the "hangar" about a week ago due to numerous issues that make it unflyable for me (this is with the latest fixes).  The ATS and autopilot logic just are not working correctly. The flight director is very erratic which probably ties into this issue. I have not had consistent results with VNAV/LNAV/MCDU/ILS intercept operations at all.  Speeds can be all over the place and LNAV tracking at times is horrendous (6-10 miles off course) The MCDU is very limited at this point and you cannot even get ETA's, TOD, TOC.  I also have issues loading in STARs where the MCDU leaves out many of the last waypoints. Heck, the altimeter setting doesn't even work correctly, not sure how that wasn't caught??  I have also been unable to get GSX working with this aircraft either as I cannot open the GSX menu...and it only happens with the 717 (not sure many others are having this problem though...so it is a mystery).  The night lighting also needs to be reworked IMO.  The VC lighting is just not effective at all and turns off too early (sunrise) and on too late (sunset) and I cannot see anything at all in the cockpit.  I have had on/off performance issues ranging from very stuttery to very smooth to pretty wide swings in FPS (don't really care about the FPS number unless it causes stutters).  Overall in my testing, it performs 20%+ below the NGX in similar scenarios but less consistent. That being said, it does have quite a number of issues that need to be fixed, many of which I think are pretty major.  I don't think the plane was ready for release but what's done is done and I think TFDI has learned from this.  I'm glad others seem to be having little to zero issues although I'm guessing some of these people are not flying it how it is supposed to be flown (??).  I have seen youtube videos where many of these issues were obvious or the plane is just being flown incorrectly (following FD well over 20 degrees pitch up nearly stalling, retracting flaps at 8000', not using AP correctly, etc, etc), and then give glowing reviews about how great it is.  All depends on what you are looking for I guess.  Hopefully TFDI can fix the issues but I'm sure it will take some time. 

Thanks Eric. Exactly what I was looking for. 

The FD and AP issues would really frustrate me. I'll wait until they get things ironed out. I have enough frustration with XP11 beta.

No  2D popups whatsoever? petty I was going to buy this, but not anymore.

I'll point out that even top developers sometimes have bugs in the FMC and vnav/lnav logic that takes ironing out. Give it a month and I bet it is more bug free. I do not have this addon but plan on buying it this summer for island hopping around Hawaii. (Hope Orbx Hawaii comes out then!)

I am currently not tempted to use VNAV extensively because I really dislike typing tons of numbers into the FMC. However, the plane automatically makes a steady climb and descent. It appears that TOD is a bit early and TOC a bit late, but other than that basic VNAV works OK. Everything else (LNAV, ILS, waypoint and airway entry, SID/STAR) works fine for me, I didn't come across any errors yet. 

 

Peter

No  2D popups whatsoever? petty I was going to buy this, but not anymore.

2D popups are so easy to create...

Hi

As a newcomer, I guess I have grounds to make a judgement on this add-on. 
In general, I like it a lot. External graphics are superb, level of internal details are high. Flight model is good, hand flying is just pure pleasure, but I would not call it a complex aircraft yet. The reason I purchased it is because I have seen the potential in it and in the dev team.

For me, FPS is not so good, however, my rig is nearly five years old, so I had to play a little with settings to churn out playable frame rates.

The negatives which I have come across so far:

No ADF-NDB at all

MCDU will display neither times nor distances

VOR navigation - at least for me - is non-existent. The frequeny is tuned in NAV/RAD, but the "VOR ARM" menu item is missing, the VOR dial will not appear on the display, therefore it is not possible to track a pre-set radial

The night cocpkit is far from perfect, the lit spots are I guess in 16 or 32 colours.

 

Regards

 

Csaba

For me, it has gone from being unusable (on release) due to CTDs, to being (after the last update) one of my favourites and it keeps pulling me back (away from the NGX - although perhaps only temporarily).

Bizarrely, I am in FSX-SE and don't have any problems with system performance with this bird.  It is almost exactly the same as the NGX for me.   I have a relatively modest system;  i7-4790 3.8Ghz, GTX 770 4GB, 16GB RAM.

The single only issue I have with it now, is that once in a while (maybe one in every 10 flights, I get a CTD when I set a DTO.    If I avoid DTOs, no CTDs at all.

Great FDE, sounds, VC, etc.   And will only be improved from here.